The Devil's Feather - Minette Walters [86]
Jess ran her fingers into her hair and tugged ferociously at her fringe. “Then it must have been Madeleine. There’s no one else who would have done it. My God! She really is a bitch. She probably hoped Lily would die of hypothermia.”
I didn’t say anything.
“No wonder she went downhill so rapidly—Peter’s never understood that, you know—” Her frown gathered ferocity. “It would explain why she went looking for warmth in other people’s houses. She probably wanted a bath. They said she washed herself.”
There was a perverted kind of logic to it although it posed more questions than it answered. “Why didn’t she tell someone?”
“Who?”
“Peter? You?”
“I stopped coming and told her not to phone me anymore. She tried once or twice but I wiped the messages without listening to them.”
“Why?”
She shook her head, unwilling to answer that question. “She wouldn’t have told Peter,” she answered instead. “She was terrified he’d tell Madeleine she couldn’t cope. She was convinced she’d end up in an institution somewhere, wearing incontinence pads and tied to a chair. She kept newspaper clippings about old people being abused in homes after their relatives lost interest. It was sad.”
“Is that why you persuaded her to reassign the power of attorney?”
“I didn’t. She thought it up all on her own when Madeleine told her to hurry up and die, and do everyone a favour.”
“When was that?”
“August. She didn’t show again until Lily was taken into care…probably because she hoped neglect would do the job quicker.”
“But you don’t think the valve was closed until November,” I pointed out mildly.
“Madeleine didn’t have to see Lily to do that. She just had to go to the outhouse.”
“But she wouldn’t want the whole world knowing what she was up to. I mean, you’re effectively accusing her of wanting to murder her mother.”
“She’s quite capable of it.”
I doubted that but I didn’t say so. “Supposing Peter had been here…supposing you had been here? Supposing someone had seen her drive through the village?”
“It depends when it was. The Horse Artillery could ride through Winterborne Barton at midnight and none of that lot—” she jerked her head in the direction of the village—“would hear them. If they’re not deaf, they’re probably snoring their heads off.” She crossed her forearms on the table and hunched forward. “It’s the one time Madeleine could have got away with doing something like that. I’m the only person who ever came in here. Everyone else went into the drawing-room. Even Peter.”
I’d learnt from experience that it wasn’t worth repeating questions, because Jess never answered anything she didn’t want to. The only technique that seemed to work was to point out Lily’s failings, which usually provoked her into defending the woman. “It doesn’t explain why Lily didn’t do something about it herself. Peter says she was functioning adequately enough to go on living here alone, so why didn’t she look up a maintenance man in the Yellow Pages? A total stranger wasn’t going to have her committed.”
Jess stared at the table. “She was much worse than Peter realized. As long as she looked neat, and could open the door to him, and roll out a few amusing anecdotes without too much repetition, he thought she was coping. She was pretty good at the airs and graces stuff…forgot everything else…but not that.”
“Was it you who was making her neat?”
Her dark gaze rested on me for a moment. “I wasn’t going to do it forever but while she was still—” she made a small gesture of resignation. “She was frightened about going into a home…made me promise to keep her out as long as possible.”
“Difficult.”
“It wasn’t all bad. I learnt more about my family after Lily went senile than I ever knew before.” Her eyes lit up suddenly. “Do you know, she really envied them? I’d listened to this crap for years about how low-grade we were—straight out of the primeval sludge without a brain between us—then suddenly it’s not fair that trolls with congenital syphilis inherit the earth.”
I smiled. “So what did she say to make you angry?”
“Nothing.”
“She must have done. You wouldn’t